


Threesomes 101

by espetrell



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, SO MUCH FLUFF, agender Courferyac, if you really hate HS AUs you can pretend this isn't one, the rest of Les Amis make appearances, warning: Iron Man 3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:07:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espetrell/pseuds/espetrell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marius is super socially awkward and adorable. Cosette is a shy nerd and adorable. Courfeyrac is in love with both of them. They're adorable too. A pattern emerges.</p><p>But seriously. Courfeyrac, Marius, and Cosette all fall in love with each other, and their friends help them sort it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threesomes 101

**Author's Note:**

> I really really hope I didn't misgender Courfeyrac, because I quadruple-checked the fic and every time I found more mistakes. Please tell me if you find any more! Also, I am so so bad at titles. I deeply apologize. One last thing: if Marius' stutter is in any way ableist or offensive, please tell me so that I can correct it.

"Marius. _Marius!_ " Courfeyrac hissed, jabbing their friend in the ribs. Marius jumped up, refocused on Courfeyrac, and blinked guiltily. Marius had a bad habit of spacing out, sometimes for hours, daydreaming and thinking. Courfeyrac hadn't been his friend for that long, much shorter than Combeferre and Enjolras, but they could already recognize the signs of a typical Marius daydream - relaxed shoulders, head tilted slightly to the side, eyes unfocused.

This was not a typical daydream, though, because Marius' eyes were focused directly on the petite brunette girl sitting across the classroom from them. The teacher had introduced her as Cosette Fauchelevant, and she was apparently a new transfer student who had just moved into the area. The only impression anyone had managed to get of her was that she had been an honors student in her previous school and that she was painfully shy. The class that Courfeyrac and Marius shared with Cosette was Calculus, and when the teacher had asked her what math class she had taken the year before, she had blushed and murmured something almost unintelligible. It sounded vaguely like "trigonometry," but no one had been entirely sure. The teacher didn't try to make small talk with her again.

Courfeyrac could see Marius beginning to space out again, and groaned as quietly as possible, "Marius, control yourself." Marius jerked his eyes away from Cosette and made a show of flipping through the math packet he was supposed to be working on. Courfeyrac wasn't as good at math as Marius was, but even they had done a couple of pages of the packet. Cosette stopped tapping her pencil against her binder, threw a glance over at the two of them, and looked back down at her paper. Courfeyrac hoped Marius hadn't noticed.

"God, I mean, you hardly know her," Courfeyrac continued, and Marius began to blush. They'd been surprised that Marius had lasted that long, as he blushed whenever he felt awkward, which was basically always. He also would stutter, which became clear when he finally spoke.

"D-Don't be like that, Courf," Marius whispered, bending down over his paper and beginning to scrawl down an answer, "Isn't sh-she cute?"

Courfeyrac had to admit that she was pretty cute. She wasn't wearing much makeup, and she was making it work for her, especially the mascara that made her light blue eyes pop. She was also wearing a loose-fitting sweater with a Tardis design on it, which Courfeyrac could absolutely get behind.

"I just w-want to talk to her," Marius sighed, "She s-seems really nice."

"No one's stopping you," Courfeyrac replied, "What's the answer to number 7?"

"Wh-what? 3x plus y," Marius answered absently, "I can't just s-s-say hi!"

"Why not?"

"I don't want to-to make her feel awkward! She's new-w here and I-I don't want to bring her ou-out of her comfort z-zone!"

"You have a point," conceded Courfeyrac, "So stop staring at her and do your work."

Marius, Courfeyrac, and the rest of their friends let Cosette alone for a couple of days. New information about her surfaced on the gossip chain, but no one was sure what was truth and what was fiction.

"Éponine told me Cosette came from this super, super religious girl's school taught by nuns," Grantaire told them when Marius asked the group about her.

"Yeah?" Jehan said incredulously. "I heard she was homeschooled by her dad."

"Apparently she doesn't have a mom," Feuilly added.

"Well, _I_ heard someone claim she was Enjolras' sister, so I wouldn't believe any of that," Combeferre chuckled.

By the third or fourth time Courfeyrac and Marius saw her sitting on her own in the library at lunch, quietly chewing on a carrot and reading _The Scarlet Letter_ for English class, they decided they'd had enough.

"We sh-should go over the-ere," Marius whispered, leaning up to say it right into Courfeyrac's ear. Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow.

"You think? And what are you going to say?"

Marius put on a brave face, replying, "'Hey there, I like your shirt!'"

Courfeyrac looked closer and saw that what they had thought was a plain black t-shirt actually had an arc reactor design on the front.

"She's got quite the fandom shirt collection, huh?"

"Maybe she's ho-oping someone will come and s-say they like her sh-shirt."

"Well, then we should go and tell her so."

Neither Courfeyrac nor Marius moved.

After a moment, Marius asked, "What's w-wrong with you? I'm always awkward and stutter-y, but y-you generally have more finesse tha-than this."

"Maybe she's happy sitting there and doing work, right?" Courfeyrac stopped speaking, seeing Cosette's eyes flick up from her book to them and immediately dart back. Marius flushed a deeper red and took a small step back, but Courfeyrac slung a casual arm over his shoulders and steered him over towards Cosette.

"Hey there, Cosette!" Courfeyrac said with a smile as Marius worked on keeping a relaxed face. Cosette set her book down and turned towards them, returning a shakier and more cautious smile. "We like your shirt!"

"Thanks," Cosette said, glancing down at the arc reactor, "It's a pity the new one had Tony take out his arc reactor. Makes my shirt obsolete."

"What?" Courfeyrac said, clapping a hand over their mouth with a dramatic gasp, "I haven't seen Iron Man 3 yet! No spoilers!"

"Oh no!" Cosette groaned, looking genuinely appalled, "I'm sorry!"

"Wait, really?" Marius said, turning to them and raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah, oh well," Courfeyrac shrugged.

"They s-still have i-it at the dollar the-theater," Marius said slowly, raising his eyebrows a bit further and giving Courfeyrac a Significant Look. He wasn't being terribly subtle, but it got the point across.

Courfeyrac said with a theatrical sigh, "Yeah, I should go see it soon. Maybe I'll go with some other people."

"Sou-sounds like fu-un," Marius agreed with a solemn nod. Cosette's eyebrows rose slowly, and she looked back and forth between the two of them.

"Okay, are you inviting me or not?" She asked with an uneasy smile.

"If you want to come along, I'd be delighted," Courfeyrac said, and Cosette's face came alight with a delighted grin. Her glee made her even prettier, and Courfeyrac was suddenly hit by love-struck embarrassment. Looking over at Marius, Courfeyrac saw that he was also glowing with happiness.

Suddenly, Cosette's smile flickered, and she said, "I don't know if my dad'll want me going out alone with two boys."

"Courf's not a boy," Marius said indignantly before Courfeyrac themself could respond. They had actually been willing to let the misunderstanding slide, but ever since Marius had made the mistake himself he made sure to not let it happen to anyone else.

"Darn it!" Cosette gasped, blushing pink, "I'm so sorry I misgendered you! What're your preferred pronouns?"

"I love you already," Courfeyrac said before they could stop themself, and both Marius and Cosette blushed brighter shades of pink. "And it's they/them."

It wasn't until Courfeyrac was in the theater with Marius and Cosette, empty but for them, that they realized that what they had said in the spur of the moment was truer than they had thought. They had only recently come to terms with the fact that they were falling in love with Marius, with his stuttering awkwardness and humble intelligence. Watching Marius and Cosette squirm in their seats and nudge each other just before Iron Man delivered yet another witty one-liner made them realize that they were starting to fall for quiet, earnest Cosette as well. When Cosette asked if they wanted to go get smoothies when the movie ended because she had some coupons they just _had_ to use before the week was over, they could hardly say yes, there were so many butterflies in their stomach. This was becoming a problem.

What made it worse was how Marius and Cosette appeared to be smitten with each other. It was admittedly pretty difficult to tell how much of their blushing and awkwardness was just part of their general personalities and how much of it was flirting, but Courfeyrac couldn't help feeling distinctly like a third wheel.

"I just _love_ Pepper, like, oh my _gosh_ ," Cosette squealed excitedly before taking an extra-energetic sip from her strawberry smoothie.

"I-I know, _right_?" Marius asked with equal enthusiasm, "Tony's lucky to have her."

Just when Courfeyrac was considering asking them to get a room, Marius turned to them, saying, "Hey, Courf, wh-what do you thi-ink? You've been quiet."

"I didn't get why Pepper didn't want to have kickass superpowers for the rest of her life," Courfeyrac started, laughing when Cosette shot up like she'd been jabbed from behind.

"No, let me tell you why," she cried, turning to them and beginning a spiel on the dangers of Extremis serum and female agency in the movie. Out of the corner of their eye, Courfeyrac noticed Marius watching Cosette gesture excitedly with a big, dopey grin on his face. They were about to nudge him and figure out a way to tell him to stop being so obvious when they noticed they were doing it too. They took a sip of their berry smoothie to hide their mouth, stomach twinging with longing. If they loved Marius and Cosette as much as they thought they did, Courfeyrac told themselves, they would need to be happy when (not if) they eventually hooked up.

The first movie night became a habit, an almost weekly ritual for the three friends. Sometimes Marius, Courfeyrac, and Cosette would meet up at the dollar theater to watch a movie; other times they would visit each other's houses. Cosette started sitting with Marius and Courfeyrac at the tables with the rest of their friends, and within days it was as if they'd all known her for years. Her early awkwardness, apparently caused by growing up in a sheltered convent, soon melted away to reveal her sweet interior. Marius had practically become a different person, cheerier and more talkative, and Courfeyrac could have sworn that he walked around with a bouncier step. Courfeyrac, on the other hand, couldn't help being a little bit melancholy, and their friends noticed.

"What's up, Courf?" Combeferre suddenly asked with concern during a US History study session that Combeferre and Enjolras were doing with Courfeyrac.

"What're you talking about?" Courfeyrac said casually.

Enjolras stopped his search for an eraser to look them in the eye and say sincerely, "You've been a bit down lately. You're brooding."

"Might I even say pining?" Combeferre added.

There was no hiding anything from the two people that you've been friends with practically since the womb. Courfeyrac sighed. "You might say that, yeah."

"Pining over whom?" Enjolras asked.

"Do you think Marius and Cosette are going to start dating soon?" Courfeyrac blurted.

Combeferre looked at Enjolras in the way that said "I told you so" louder than words would, and replied, "I don’t know, you know them much better than we do."

"So which one is it?" Enjolras persisted.

" _Both_ ," Courfeyrac sighed. "And they're so into each other, it's so obvious…"

"And you don't think they're into you, like, at all?" Combeferre asked.

"Don't be mean, 'Ferre, have you _seen_ them?" Courfeyrac snapped, which he immediately regretted, but thankfully Combeferre didn't seem offended.

"You underestimate how much they care about you, Courf," Combeferre said gently, but Courfeyrac scowled at him and snorted in disbelief.

"Why wouldn't they like you?" Enjolras broke in.

"I dunno, it's just, they're both so darling, they deserve each other," Courfeyrac replied, agitated, "Now stop bugging me about it. We have work to do."

Courfeyrac hoped that their friends would drop the subject, and Combeferre and Enjolras did for the moment. But a couple of days later, Courfeyrac was searching up a YouTube video on his laptop after school when they was interrupted by the sound of a clearing throat. They looked up to find that all the others had disappeared somewhere except Cosette, Marius, Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta. The latter trio were standing in front of the other trio, and Marius and Cosette had already stopped what they had been doing and started paying attention.

"You three, listen up," Musichetta said, arms crossed over her chest menacingly.

"This is an intervention," Joly declared.

Marius turned his standard shade of beet red, and Cosette spluttered, "Intervention?"

"You heard us," Bossuet said, "You three have been moping around, looking sad when you think the others can't see you, getting flustered all the time, the works."

"If this is what I think it's about…" Courfeyrac said slowly.

" _'Chetta_ ," Cosette said accusingly, "I told you we weren't talking about this -"

"No, we definitely are," Musichetta interrupted, "Communication needs to happen."

"Why is it you three giving us this talk…" Marius asked weakly. It wasn't a question; he already knew the answer.

"Alright, boys, girls, and those who fall into neither category," Bossuet said, clapping his hands together decisively, "This is Threesomes 101."

Even though they all knew on some level that it was coming, all three still gasped, winced, and flushed in mortification. Then they glanced between each other, Marius biting his lip and Courfeyrac's eyes widening as they figured out what exactly was going on.

"Um," said Cosette.

"Huh," said Courfeyrac.

"Oh," whispered Marius.

"You know what, Bossuet? I think that was enough," Musichetta said smugly.

"So I didn't have to make an informational PowerPoint after all," Joly sighed, throwing an arm over his eyes in mock despair. Marius laughed despite himself.

"Was there seriously a PowerPoint?" Courfeyrac heard themself asking, "Because I would have, ah, liked to see it."

"Yeah, we've done our job," said Bossuet, restraining laughter, "Now we leave them to figure it out themselves."

"Bye, guys," Musichetta said, walking away with a wave of the hand, and her boyfriends followed.

"Have fun!" Joly couldn't resist adding. When they left, a heavy silence fell.

Finally, Marius opened his mouth and somehow managed to say without a single stammer, "Um, so, the Netflix DVD for Mean Girls just arrived in the mail yesterday…?"

Courfeyrac was suddenly hit by two thoughts at the same time: "He is absolutely adorable," and "I guess this means that I actually _can_ kiss him now." They leaned forward to do so, but as it turned out, Cosette had had the exact same idea, and all three of them bumped lips simultaneously. They pulled back reflexively, Cosette with her fingertips pressed into her lips, and considered each other for another long moment.

"Mean Girls at Marius' house sounds like a great date night to me," Courfeyrac worked up the courage to say, and Marius immediately burst into delighted, borderline-hysteric giggles.

Cosette looked back and forth between them frantically, saying what they all were thinking, which was, "I don't know which of you to kiss _first_!"

"Augh, w-what a _tragedy_ ," Marius moaned sarcastically, and for that, Cosette leaned in and kissed him. Courfeyrac hardly had time to say anything before she was drawing back, throwing her arms around their neck, and kissing them with equal gusto.

"Now we can go watch Mean Girls!" Cosette cried in glee, stepping back and grabbing both of their hands. The three of them grabbed their odds and ends, Marius taking Cosette's bag for her, and started walking to the lot where their cars were parked.

"We still haven't do-one one of the combinations yet," Marius murmured, looking hopefully over Cosette's head at Courfeyrac.

"There'll be plenty of time to even it out when we get to your house," Courfeyrac replied. Together they walked back to their cars, tightly grasping each other's hands, perfectly content. 


End file.
